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WARNING This thread contains: nudity + bloody scenes and adult themes that may cause distress, starting with the 1st post. Reader discretion is advised. |
wc: 800+
The room was cloaked in darkness.
It was stifling, the heady scent of blood, and it curled over the thickened air like a mass of buzzards, choking the world of its colors and its brilliance. Its life.
The woman lay curled in the fetal position, cold spears of light shafting over delicate features distorted by unconscious pain and the unrelenting pursuit of nightmares. Beneath shallow eyelids the fractured world was hollow, filled only by the tangled claws of monsters that would never be born to reality, the haunting echoes of screams uttered soundlessly, gaping maws fit to swallow the moon, the world, and all who dwelled therein.
It was the dreams that woke her, before the wracking pain. Waves of it, pulsating through the young woman's feminine frame, brought her mind back from the brink of this perilous sleep. And she knew at once, with the horror of those who realize the potency of a second to scatter one's whole life into chaos, what had happened.
The blood between her legs was sticky. The faux contractions stopped. The microscopic corpses lay undiscovered in the red sea of sheets.
Her mind collapsed. No unearthly cry of pain came forth, no horror-struck howl of internal agony, merely the sharp rushes of shallow breath that oozed from between clenched teeth, the fluttering of a pulse stuck like a hummingbird in a cage. For a long time, or a short time, for time seemed stuck as though she were submerged in a world of water, glazed emerald eyes stared out blindly at the shafts of moonlight that pierced through her cloth-covered window. Somewhere, beyond, the pre-dawn stars might be seen. A poisonous emptiness filled her veins, as if they had been drained, and her body left to bleed out from between feminine thighs.
Her heart certainly had.
After a moment, she rose. The woman's lithe body moved to a robotic clockwork, thoughtless, like an inanimate object brought momentarily to life by the tuggings of an unseen puppeteer, the sharp jabs of steel-cord cables that lifted leaden limbs in a monotonous sway. The sheets were gathered beneath the crook of one arm, the door opened silently. A shadowy figure slipped from the Chien Hotel, but the moon gilded her blank stare silver, embellishing the creamy curves of her breasts, enhancing the bony protrusions beneath. Gaunt shadows glided listlessly beneath, and within, soulless emerald eyes.
To the forest she went, this waif-life creature. Grasping branches concealed her ghostly form clawing their way to the ominous pale eye above. The figure continued onwards, to a small glade - There she stopped and placed the sheets on the ground, so carefully, so lovingly - A caress on the gilded folds, the blooming of ruby like an opening rose. From within her clasped hand, a match was revealed - With robotic precision she struck it alight, the warmth playing across stony skin that heeded not it's welcoming glow. The lady held it a moment, her spearing eyes captivated by the flickering flame, trembling fingers making it dance lovely pirouettes in the darkness. Only when the livid colors reached her fingers, and the slight smell of burning flesh caught delicate nose, did the woman drop it automatically into the bundle.
She stood for a lifetime, watching the flames leap and dance, spread and grow. The blankets twisted and charred, a grotesque corpse of folds and brilliant embers. And when at last the cold wind blew, and the last coals glittered like fallen stars at her feet, the healer-lady turned her back on the scene.
The ocean called, and the puppet responded, her limbs moving of their own accord. Slowly, at first, and then faster - And then she was running, running as if the devil himself was on her heels, running from the charred scar of land lost in the forest glade. Trees became a blur. Only the pulse of the waves awaited her, that driving force of water, that powerful clashing of elements that sang to the blood like siren-calls. She staggered out onto the sand, stumbled, fell - Was up and moving again, moving towards the inky black water, her arms outstretched as though to a lover.
The water enveloped her in a chilling embrace, holding tight her body, and still Alaine walked. To her shoulder, her neck - Auburn curls floated on a starry surface, flat as glass, luring her deeper. At last, the cold dark quiet closed over her head.
She smiled. Peace. But no, no, for her body began to rebel - Twitching, a rush of agony. Fire in her lungs. Bubbles floated before her vision. And arch of searing need, and unable to bear it, her head burst from beneath the surface, gagging horribly, gasping the sweet oxygen like an addict. She floundered to the sand, a gossamer scarecrow, diamonds dripping from each flailing appendage. Collapsing to the welcoming earth, her body reviled once, spewing up the salt water in violent bursts, spewing up her guts until she lay empty on the sand, her body a barren husk, despised. Traitorous. Too weak, too pathetic, for death.
Blind emerald eyes gazed up at the heavens, and such a fury flew through her that for a while she could not move, but just remained still. So still that she became a part of the sand. Mindless, but for the anger.
And when at last blood returned to the shell of her body, the tearless puppet stirred. Like a mist rising from the moors she floated back into the world, weightless, held down by no mortality but that of the cold metal teeth of an open trap, glistening as death in the trapped moonlight.
Speak think walk
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